The 10 Best Songs We Heard This Week: Savages, Laurel Halo

It’s Friday, and we are, as ever, rounding up the best songs we’ve heard this week, which to be honest is a rather pleasant distraction from all the other fucked-up stuff going on in the world. This week we swooned (again) at new material from Savages, were intrigued by the return of Laurel Halo, enjoyed the new Daft Punk song (albeit perhaps not quite as much as everyone else), and elsewhere generally got down to new stuff by Com Truise, Gunslinger, Tempers… and Black Sabbath, whose new song actually isn’t that bad at all. Who’d have thought it? Anyway, click through and get listening.

Savages — “Shut Up”
Yes, shut up and take our money already! Seriously, favorite new band — we can’t wait for their album.

Laurel Halo — “Throw”
Yay for new Laurel Halo, too. This is a beautiful piece of cerebral electronica, all based around an insistent piano sample. There’s a really interesting interview with her here, too.

Daft Punk — “Get Lucky”
You may have heard of them.

A Place to Bury Strangers — “Don’t Burn the Fire”
As far as bands that have a large amount in common go, A Place to Bury Strangers and Dead Moon are pretty close to the top of the list, so it makes perfect sense to find the former covering the latter here. It’s apparently one of seven Dead Moon covers that’ll be on Strange Moon, an EP that APTBS are releasing tomorrow for Record Store Day, and it’s as distortion-drenched and intense as you might expect.

Stars — “Hold on When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It” (Com Truise remix)
A suitably squelchified remix of Stars’ “Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It,” courtesy of New Jersey producer and Flavorwire favorite Com Truise. CT’s sci-fi sounds work surprisingly well with Stars’ dramatic romanticism.

Gold Panda — “Brazil”
Apparently Gold Panda’s been all around the world in the process of making his upcoming album Half of Where You Live, and it shows — the beats on “Brazil” definitely have a Latin feel to them, and the track has a sort of spacey summer-night charm that’ll be just lovely on long, warm rooftop evenings.

Tempers — “Strange Harvest”
NYC-based Tempers are the latest signing to dark overlord Todd Pendu’s label Pendu Sound, and their music is pretty much exactly what you might expect — it’s dark and atmospheric, with a decidedly gothic bent and a whole lot of swirling, ghostly synth sounds.

The Haxan Cloak — “The Mirror Reflecting (Part 2)”
Also on the dark ‘n’ ominous front, this is seven minutes of menacing-sounding electronic music that’d be right at home soundtracking some sort of nasty Japanese horror movie. It’s probably not exactly what anyone needs at this point, to be honest, but still, it’s worth queueing it for a day that’s a bit less intense.

Gunslinger — “Breaking Through”
And while we’re speaking about intensity — as we’ve written before here, rock/electronic fusion is a genre that’s fraught with danger, but LA duo Gunslinger navigate this perilous territory very deftly indeed. This is the title track for their new album, and you can download it for free from their website. The video’s kinda freaky, too, and definitely NSFW.

Black Sabbath — “God Is Dead?”
And finally, well, this… well, it isn’t terrible, actually. Ozzy’s lyrics are pretty ropey, but then again, they always have been (“Generals gathered in their masses/ Just like witches at black masses”, anyone?), and Tony Iommi can still churn out the riffs of doom like no one else.